Van Warmerdam has built a visually clean, efficient, modern version of a fairy tale of the sort that blurs together the pagan and Christian. But he does so without really opening up the metaphysics (or the pretenses) of, say, a Carlos Reygadas trip. At the very least, though, the film confirms the veteran Dutch filmmaker as an under-sung, if perhaps old-fashioned, practitioner of that trusty art-house staple, the twisted domestic allegory.
Nicolas Rapold
May 7, 2014